Showing posts with label PageRank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PageRank. Show all posts
When you are very new in SEO, there is a whole lot of conflicting information about what is right and what is wrong. There's a constant battle between which one is more effective.
It's pretty easy to get frustrated at how long it can actually take to achieve a decent ranking in Search Engines. This can lead to taking the wrong advice from the wrong people. I learned by trial and error the SEO mistakes listed below.
Here are some rules that you can follow if and only if you DO NOT want your site to rank in search engines.
1. Build a Flash Only Website
The days of Flash only websites are probably behind us (thank God). Having said this, as a web developer it's surprising how often I'm asked, 'Does that include Flash?'
Search engines cannot read content embedded in Flash files so you shouldn't use Flash to build websites. It's perfectly all right to have a flash feature box or slideshow or something like that so long as the rest of your site is built with HTML.
2. Hide all Your Content in Images
This is another sin of the past, although you do still see it occasionally. If you embed your navigation and page copy in images, search engines will not be able to identify this content. Use text-based navigation and semantic mark-up instead.
3. Use Excessive JavaScript/AJAX
Search Engines do not understand JavaScript/Ajax. If you use too much of this and in particular in your navigation, you're preventing your content being indexed. Use text-based HTML/CSS navigation instead.
4. Copy Someone Else's Content
You're not much of a writer and no one will ever know right? I'm afraid not. Duplicate content is one of the biggest sins you can commit as far as search engines are concerned. Not only do you prevent your site from ranking, but you also impact the site you copied the material from.
You should either write all content yourself or hire somebody else to do it for you.
5. Stuff Your Content with Keywords
Including the same keyword phrase in the Page Title, the Heading, three times in the copy, bolded, in a link and in an image alt tag is an example of keyword stuffing. This is like telling the search engine, 'I'm trying to manipulate you into ranking me higher'. They won't rank you higher, they'll penalize you instead.
Include your keyword phrase, but do it naturally. Write primarily for humans then worry about search engines.
6. Use Automated Directory Submission Software
There are loads of software programs to automate the directory submission process. Don't use them.
First of all directory submissions are not that valuable in terms of PageRank anymore. Secondly you'll end up with thousands of similar Titles and Descriptions that will mark you as a cheater as far as search engines are concerned.
Submít to well-established directories, write unique Titles and Descriptions and try to focus on local and niche directories.
7. Participate in Link Exchange Programs
Often you see websites with a 'Links' or 'Resources' page with a list of links a mile long. Often these have no relevance to the content of the site and have been reciprocated on an identical page on the corresponding site.
There are a number of problems with this:
* Reciprocal links are less valuable than one way links.
* Links from pages containing hundreds have no value.
* It looks like you are trying to cheat the search engines.
* It looks unprofessional to users.
Reciprocal links are fine in moderation. Try to only swap links with relevant organizations and try to link from, and get links from inside paragraphs of related text in articles or blogposts.
8. Use the same Page Title and Meta Description Across Your Site
If you do this, you are basically saying that all your webpages are the same. Search engines index webpages and not websites; this is why you should have a unique, accurate Page Title and Meta Description for every page. Include your keywords in the Page Title in particular but don't go crazy with the Meta Description.
9. Focus on the Wrong Keywords
Often when companies hire an SEO they'll tell them they want to rank number one in Google for a 'short-tail', high competition keyword phrase. For instance an accountant might want to rank for the term 'accountant.'
I'm afraid it doesn't really work like that. It takes a while for any site to get off the ground and this is why it is important to focus on 'long-tail' keyword phrases. This is achieved by adding modifiers to the original phrase like 'tax accountant' or 'tax accountant manchester.'
By focusing on less competitive phrases you can get instant traffic while setting yourself up to compete for more competitive phrases in the future.
10. Don't Use Search Engine Friendly URLs
A SEF (Search Engine Friendly) URL is really a human friendly URL. What I mean by this is one that contains actual words and not a list of numbers and symbols.
Non SEF URL: http://www.onlineassistant.co.cc/?page_id=330
The first example contains words that relate to the content of the page as well as what category the page is in. The next example contains the article id which is of little use to anyone.
You may be at a point where your site has lots of usable and compelling content. Unfortunately this isn't always enough to gain new readers and revenue. It could be time to build a link strategy to boost your brand authority and site ranking. The way to begin is by making partnerships, starting conversations and trading links so more webmasters (and their readers) know who you are.
Why? The majority of computers and much of the media are now social, so it's time for you to break out of your bubble.
Getting your site optimized can be time consuming and often you won't see the results of the labor for a few weeks, if not months. A site that ranks well is the outcome of shrewd planning and lots of effort with few shortcuts. You have to make good decisions early in the process to gain a good amount of momentum. Basic SEO strategy is a lengthy process, and you can find out smart ways to begin here.
Similarly, incorporating social media into the public face of your business is a long process that will take time to reach its potential. Success in social media relies on cooperation and engagement with your clients and customers (and sometimes even your competitors). Where do you begin?
Basic Inbound Links: Inbound links are widely regarded as a necessity for high ranking in the search engine listings. Search engines view links to web sites as a vote in favor of their importance. If popular sites like your site, then search engines like your site. It resembles how high school cliques are formed. What this means is the more authoritative a site, the more powerful their link seems to search engines. If the link goes to your site, then search engines think your site also holds part of that authority. The authority of a site is gauged by its page rank (PR). This is a standard 1 to 10 scale Google assigns to pages based on hundreds of qualifications, 10 being the highest rank with most authority.
Part of best practices in building page rank and authority is submitting to directoríes and sites that point back to your site. But don't waste much time sending tons of random links out to directories with very low PR. Your time is better spent sending a few well-optimized links to popular sites that share context with content on your site. For example, if your business sells consumer electronics, then you want links from authoritative sites that review electronics brands you sell.
Other important aspects of in-bound links are:
* Don't do too much too fast. The rate of growth for incoming links should not ever be more than 20% per month. If too many inbound links pop up at once, search engines get nervous and your authority may suffer.
* The links should contain phrase-rich descriptors (page descriptions, alt tags for photo links, and/or your business name). The link structures should vary from site to site - they don't have to be wildly different, just dissimilar.
* Avoid lots of effort (but not all) directed at link building on sites that feature a "no follow" rule for back links. This eliminates most SEO value to your link. You can see which sites do this by investigating the source code, and no-follow commands are usually within a javascript applet.
* Social Media can be a powerful tool in building both traffic and PR for your website if you adhere to a few rules. More about that later.
What are the Main Inbound Link Types?
Directional Links: These are standard links back to your site from a variety of web sites and directories that include a combination of title, short description, and/or a business logo.
Content Links: These are links to your site found within the body of content authored by you. The content is usually several paragraphs of text and infographics such as a press release, a blog post, research and white papers, or other information-based articles.
Social Media Links: Using social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others are a great way to see who is saying something about you, but also a good way to tell others what you're doing. You can also provide your services as an industry resource or expert who gives advice to those who need it. The overall requirement is simple, but time-consuming: participate in conversations, don't just sell.
Social Sharing Links: These are referenced from media objects (e.g. videos, images, etc) that serve to indicate the author of the object. This strategy can include posting of "how to" videos on your related topics as well as creating a variety of directional links from bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon or De.licio.us.
In the next chapter, we'll discuss Directional Links and Content Links and where you can begin building them for inbound traffic boosts.
For those of you using advanced SEO techniques such as PageRank sculpting, you might want to listen up.
Head of Google’s crime spam fighting team, Matt Cutts, put the cat amongst the pigeons last month when he answered an audience question at the SMX Advanced conference about the value of using rel=”no follow” for PageRank sculpting purposes. When asked if it was a good idea to use nofollow when linking around within your site, Matt said no. NoFollow is a method to annotate a link to say to search engines “I don’t want to vouch for this link.” In Google, nofollow links don’t pass PageRank.
According to Matt, more than a year ago, Google changed how the PageRank flows so that links WITHOUT nofollow would flow lesser points of PageRank than before and that links WITH the nofollow attribute would count toward how PageRank is divided up amongst all links on a page. Seems SEOs and webmasters were getting a little bit trigger happy with their use of rel=”no follow” for Google crawl prioritization and were accidently blocking Googlebot from indexing important parts of their site.
Matt later clarified the issue with his blog post PageRank Sculpting : “We noticed some sites that attempted to change how PageRank flowed within their sites, but those sites ended up excluding sections of their site that had high-quality information (e.g. user forums)… I wouldn’t recommend PageRank sculpting because it isn’t the most effective way to utilize your PageRank. In general, I would let PageRank flow freely within your site. The notion of “PageRank sculpting” has always been a second- or third-order recommendation for us. I would recommend the first-order things to pay attention to are 1) making great content that will attract links in the first place, and 2) choosing a site architecture that makes your site usable/crawlable for humans and search engines alike. For example, it makes a much bigger difference to make sure that people (and bots) can reach the pages on your site by clicking links than it ever did to sculpt PageRank. “
So the short story is this: PageRank sculpting is no longer effective as a SEO technique (if it ever was). For the most part, the more links on a page, the less PageRank each link gets. Keep that in mind whenever you’re optimizing your site and when you build new pages.
